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Glossary B

If you do not see a particular word or phrase that you would like to know the definition of, please let us know by writing to John McCormick and indicate the term you would like us to add to the Glossary.

B2B

business-to-business commerce conducted over the Web.

B2C

Business-to-consumer commerce conducted over the Internet.
It links consumers to commercial entities in one-way
networks.

balanced scorecard

A comprehensive, top-down view of organizational
performance with a strong focus on vision and strategy. In
1992 the founding fathers of the Balanced Scorecard, Drs.
Robert Kaplan and David Norton, debuted their methodology
in the Harvard Business Review. Then, in 1996, they
released The Balanced Scorecard  Translating Strategy
into Action, the so-called bible of the Balanced
Scorecard.

balanced scorecard collaborative

A professional services firm dedicated to the worldwide awareness, use, enhancement and integrity of the balanced scorecard as a value-added management process.*

balanced scorecard collaborative certification

An industry-standard certification offered to software providers whose balanced scorecard applications meet the functional standards of Kaplan and Norton. These are applications that will enable end users to achieve the benefits of the balanced scorecard management process.*

baldrige criteria for performance excellence

Criteria providing a systems perspective for understanding performance management. They reflect validated, leading management practices against which an organization can measure itself. With their acceptance nationally and internationally as the model for performance excellence, the criteria represent a common language for communication among organizations for sharing best practices.*

banner

A picture or graphic that stretches horizontally across a
Web page. These can be used to title the Web page, start or
separate different sections, create links to other Web
pages, or provide a place for advertisements.

banner advertising

A marketing mechanism that contains strips of
advertisements that are sporadically positioned on a web
page and are extremely popular on the World Wide Web.
These types of ads generally take up a considerable amount
of bandwidth and are sometimes disturbing to the Web user.

base tables

The normalized data structures maintained in the target warehousing database. Also known as the detail data.

basel II new accord

This is a set of banking standards, which will regulate finance and banking for countries in the European Union. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is tasked with the goal to complete the New Accord by mid-year 2004, with implementation to take effect in member countries by year-end 2006. To that end, work already has begun in a number of countries on draft rules that would integrate Basel capital standards with national capital regimes. Basel II is focused specifically on global banks and financial institutions and ensures liquidity of those institutions for the protection of public trust.*

benchmarking

A point of reference for measurement.

benefit segmentation

The process of grouping customers into market segments
according to the benefits they seek from the product.
Refers to their needs and wants only.

best practices

A case study considered to be a good example of a business
discipline.

bidirectional extracts

The ability to extract, cleanse and transfer data in two
directions among different types of databases, including
hierarchical, networked and relational databases.

braking mechanism

A software mechanism that prevents users from querying the operational database once transaction loads reach a certain level.

brick and mortar

Refers to businesses that exist in the real world as
opposed to just the cyber world, such as brick-and-mortar
retail outlets, bricks-and-mortar warehouses, etc.

bridge table

A table with a multipart key whose purpose is to capture a many-to-many relationship that can't be accompanied by the natural grain of a single fact table or a single dimension table. (Data Warehouse term - Ralph Kimball)

browser

The generic term for software programs that retrieve,
display and print information World Wide Web. The most
popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape
Navigator and Mosaic. Mosaic was the first browser to
introduce graphics. Previously, users were only allowed to
view the text of Web pages. Currently, Microsoft Outlook
is the most popular browser in the world.

bulk data transfer

A software-based mechanism designed to move large data files. It supports compression, blocking and buffering to optimize transfer times.

business activity monitoring (BAM)

BAM is the ability to automatically monitor events associated with specific activities in an executing business process.
BAM is a business solution supported by an advanced
technical infrastructure that enables rapid insight into
new business strategies, the reduction of operating cost by
real-time identification of issues and improved process
performance.

business architecture

One of the four layers of an information systems architecture. A business architecture describes the functions a business performs and the information it uses.

business continuity

The degree to which an organization may achieve uninterrupted stability of systems and operational procedures.

business data

Information about people, places, things, business rules, and events, which is used to operate the business. It is not metadata. (Metadata defines and describes business data.)

business drivers

The people, information, and tasks that support the fulfillment of a business objective.

business intelligence (BI)

Business intelligence is actually an environment in which
business users receive data that is reliable, consistent,
understandable, easily manipulated and timely. With this
data, business users are able to conduct analyses that
yield overall understanding of where the business has been,
where it is now and where it will be in the near future.
Business intelligence serves two main purposes. It
monitors the financial and operational health of the
organization (reports, alerts, alarms, analysis
tools, key performance indicators and dashboards). It also
regulates the operation of the organization providing two-
way integration with operational systems and information
feedback analysis.

business intelligence platform

A foundation of enabling tools and technologies necessary for the development and deployment of business intelligence and business performance management applications.*

business intelligence service provider (BISP)

A natural extension of the ASP, application of data
warehousing and business intelligence (BI) methodologies
and technologies to the ASP model. BISPs tie into
information systems behind a corporation's firewall,
providing traditional data warehouse and analytic
application capabilities for Internet-based e-businesses,
especially e-commerce Web sites and are hosted off site.

business intelligence software

A category of software that enables companies to access, analyze and share information to understand how the business is performing and to improve decision making.*

business intelligence tools

The tools and technologies used to access and analyze business information. They include online analytical processing (OLAP) technologies, data mining and advanced analytics; end-user tools for ad hoc query and analysis, enterprise class query, analysis and reporting including dashboards for performance monitoring; and production reporting against all enterprise data sources.*

business model

A view of the business at any given point in time. The view can be from a process, data, event or resource perspective, and can be the past, present or future state of the business.

business performance calibration (BPC)

The continuous, near real-time forecasting and analysis of
related performance metrics to achieve balanced
performance  i.e., efficient growth and the optimal
management of resources.

business performance intelligence (BPI)

A subset of the BI market and involves planning and
budgeting, Balanced Scorecard performance management and
activity-based costing.

business performance management (BPM)

Applications that help direct modeling or scenario exploration activities. Rather than simply exploring what happened and why, the application can help the user consider the implications of alternative courses of action before they become operational. Performance management suggests an explicit relationship to action, and modeling is the key link to do this.

business performance measurement

Applications that provide support for specific KPIs (key
performance indicators) enable a business to measure their
performance. This is often coupled with comparative
information from industry sources, so a company can compare
their performance against that of others in their industry.
Business performance measurement applications support the
analysis phase of the business improvement cycle.

business process management

Business process management is the management of complex interactions between people, applications and technologies in a business designed to create customer value.

business service optimization

This term is sometimes used in ways similar to Business Service Management, except the emphasis here is on the optimization aspect. Refers to the process of aligning both the business and IT by identifying all components (all process steps) of a business service and defining ways to automate and track the results of the process. Optimization refers to the process of identifying the best place to perform a process, the best way to route deliverables through the process, the best person/place/thing to perform each step in the Business Service, etc. In fact, these aspects are also part of Business Service Management.

business transaction

A unit of work acted upon by a data capture system to create, modify, or delete business data. Each transaction represents a single valued fact describing a single business event.